Garden Q&A: Don’t let shade limit your plant choices

Thursday

Jun 28, 2007 at 12:01 AMJun 28, 2007 at 1:30 AM

Gardening Q&A column.

Rockford Register Star

Question: My garden has a lot of shade. Are hostas my only choice? – H.M., Rockford

Answer: Shade has always posed a challenge for gardeners. Fear the shade no longer. Hybridizers and plant hunters are constantly coming up with new offerings for shaded locations. Shade perennials can provide a striking contrast in texture, flower form, fall color and bloom time. Even the shadiest of sites can be attractively landscaped.

Here are a few of the perennials that “love the dark side."

Aconitum, or monkshood, is a stately garden plant for the shade garden. Growing as high as 24 inches, these plants prefer an area where soil moisture is constant but not soggy wet. The violet blue flowers look similar to snapdragons and are produced in August and September.

Bergania, or pigsqueak, gives a wonderful textual difference to the shaded garden. The large, glossy green foliage looks similar to wax begonia foliage, only much larger. The plant likes a well-drained, moist site in light shade. Pink flowers are produced in April. Growing to 12 inches to 15 inches tall, these plants offer an orange/yellow background for tall spikes of white flowers in August and September.

There are two types of bleeding heart that can be used in the shade garden. Dicentra spectabilis is the old-fashioned bleeding heart. It produces pink, locket-shaped flowers on long stems during May and June and grows to 3 feet. You might want to plant something in the vicinity to help cover the bare area left behind, since it has a habit of going dormant during the summer.

The other bleeding heart, Dicentra Formosa "Luxuriant," is a short plant at 12 inches. It produces fine, blue-green foliage and flowers from May to August with small red flowers. It continues to provide color all season and does not go dormant during the summer.

A plant that likes the dry shade under trees is the Epimedium. This perennial provides a complete ground cover over time and competes well with tree roots. It grows up to 12 inches, blooms with yellow-red flowers in May to August, has heart-shaped leaves, and burgundy/crimson fall foliage color.

The perennial geranium Geranium endressi "Wargrave Pink" does well in shaded areas. Growing up to 15 inches tall, it produces salmon pink blooms in May and June and then sporadically throughout the season.

Polemonium, or Jacob’s Ladder, produces plants that are 15 inches to 18 inches tall with fine, fernlike foliage can be green or variegated green and white. As an added bonus, it has stalks of lavender blue flowers in May. This makes a useful accompaniment to the broader-leaved favorites in the shade garden.